


The River

by TuskedLioness



Series: Keeping It Together [2]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Parents, Angst, Bullying, F/F, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Single Parents, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-26 03:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14393652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TuskedLioness/pseuds/TuskedLioness
Summary: Mala believed Lapis’s death was intended. She never grew up religiously, but there was always this feeling as if some higher power decided to take her away. She even suspected Lapis was the one to choose her death, even before Mala learned about the concept of “suicide”.It was probably because one of the last words Mala ever heard Lapis say was“I’d rather be dead than be here.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate route to Keeping It Together where Lapis is the one who dies instead of Malachite. It still counts as a standalone and it isn't required to read the first fic to understand this one. Anyway, enjoy.

Four years ago, Malachite had two moms. Some treated the same-sex parents thing as strange and sometimes kids made fun of her for it, which Momma told her to take no shit about, and other times people didn’t care.

Four years ago, Mala called Lapis “Mom”. Now that Lapis was dead, Mala didn’t want to call Lapis “Mom” anymore. Whatever higher power killed her clearly didn’t want her to belong to Mala and Momma.

Four years ago, Lapis died.

Malachite remembered the day. It wasn’t a big deal at the time. Rain hammered down from outside as it usually did in the spring, and Momma worked on grilling fish tacos for dinner. Mala sat near the fireplace. The sun was beginning to set somewhere behind the grey clouds.

“Are you doing your homework?” Momma called from the kitchen.

“Yeah,” Mala called back. It was a lie. She simply doodled a T-Rex absentmindedly, her mind drifted to the now pointless things of the day. Three years later, Mala didn’t remember what those things were anymore. All she could remember were the moments just described- doing homework at the coffee table, the smell of grilling fish, and the heavy rain pouring outside.

Rain…it seemed so harmless at the time. It was something Mala wanted to dance under and splash around in at that age. And especially in that moment, Mala didn’t have a single worry about the rain at all.

_“Be safe, got it?”_ she now recalled Momma saying to Lapis before she stepped outside that morning. The rain still poured. Although Mala and Lapis weren’t related, it felt as if they both shared the love and fearlessness towards water. Lapis simply told Momma _“I’ll be okay.”_ before drifting to the car without a turn of her head. The car had driven away. Mala didn’t think anything of it. She assumed she’d see that car again.

She didn’t, of course, but then again, Mala didn’t worry at the time. Two hours passed by since Momma started cooking dinner. The tacos sat on the table, growing colder and colder as Momma and Mala waited for Lapis to return home.

Mala noticed Momma’s tense body language, her muttering _“Where is she?”_ along with constantly peeking out a window every time a car’s lights danced by. But Mala watched nature documentaries and assumed Lapis would be home soon. Watching a killer snail eat fish alive was more worth her time than whatever worry she could feel.

Momma’s phone rang. Momma rushed to her phone unusually quickly and picked up.

“Hello?” Momma said. Mala glanced up and watched Momma’s brow furrow. “No…she’s not home…why?”

Momma remained silent for a few seconds, and then continued. “Wait…but Lapis said she was…goddammit!” she spat. She stormed into another room away from Mala, but Mala could still hear her as the voice drifted away. “I’ll get there in a second. Peridot will be fine. Lapis just does this sometimes…I didn’t know she’d drag Peridot into this…but I’ll be there, I swear. No problem. See ya.” The sound of the phone clicked off and Momma walked back into the kitchen.

“What happened, Momma?” Mala asked.

“Eat your dinner,” Momma told her. “I want you to eat as fast as you can and go straight to bed.”

“But what about Mom?”

“She’ll eat later. It’s almost your bedtime anyway and you got school tomorrow.”

Mala huffed. She was hoping Momma would forget it was a Sunday and let her stay up till ten one more time. “Do I have to go to bed?”

“Yes, Mala,” Momma gritted.

“Can’t I wait until Mom gets home?”

“She’ll be home in the morning. Just eat your dinner and don’t argue with me anymore, got it?” Momma demanded. Mala looked up to see the silent distress in her eyes. Knowing that pushing Momma further in such a state would simply cause her to give Mala a strong whooping, Mala decided to drag herself to the table and shovel the cold tacos in her mouth.

She finished most of it while Momma stared out the window. “Momma,” Mala said with her mouth full. “Why isn’t Mom home yet?”

“She’ll be soon.”

“But where is she?”

“That doesn’t matter. She’ll be home soon. Are you done eating yet?” She didn’t wait for Mala to answer as she picked up the empty plate and placed it in the dishwasher. “Get ready for bed and make it quick. You should be asleep already.”

“Fine…”

Mala went upstairs, threw her pajamas on, and brushed her teeth before heading to bed, as much as she didn’t feel like it.  Momma came in shortly after and tucked Mala in.

“I’m big enough to tuck in myself,” Mala told her with a grumpy look on her face.

“I know. I just want to do it once in a while,” Momma said. She leaned forward and kissed her on the head, but Momma didn’t look happy in the slightest. Stress continued to wear down on her face more than it usually did, causing delicate lines between her eyebrows.

Mala frowned. “Are you worried about Mom?”

Momma chuckled. “She’s fine, Mala.”

“What were you talking on the phone about?”

“It was nothing. Now stop your worrying and go to sleep. Everything will be fine.” Momma pulled away and turned off the light and gently shut Mala’s door.

Mala said nothing. Her eyes remained wide open in the dark. What must have been about ten minutes later, a car rumbled in the driveway. Mala pulled open the curtains to see that it wasn’t Lapis’s car, but Momma’s, driving away. She waited for it to disappear down the road before she finally tore away from the window.

\--

Mala must have not slept well, because she awoke to the sound of the car returning in the driveway. Mala bolted awake and strained her ears. It parked in the garage. Wet, squelchy steps and water dripping onto the tile floor was all Mala could hear. No voices at all. Maybe Momma and Lapis were giving each other the silent treatment again?

Eventually the steps made it past her room and into her parents’ room. Strange…there was only the sound of one person walking…. Mala frowned.

Finally, she heard a voice speak up. It was Momma’s. She seemed to be talking on the phone from how she responded to nothing. “Hey,” she said quietly. Mala pressed her ear against the wall. “My name is Jasper Lazuli. My wife is missing.”

\--

It took a while for Momma to break the news to Mala. Momma said that they don’t know where Lapis was but that they’ll find her, and told Mala to live her day as she usually did. This was when the worry finally started to sink in.

“Where did she go?” Mala asked.

“We don’t know, Mala.”

“But there has to be a clue.”

“She was last seen at the river,” Momma told her. She paused after she must have realized what she just said, and shot a stern glare to Mala. “But don’t you dare go looking for her, got it?! I have a missing wife and I’m not going to have a missing kid either.”

“But-”

“No buts, Mala,” Momma said. “Now go do your homework.”

Mala remembered the thoughts running through her mind. _Mom should be fine,_ Mala thought, trying to calm herself down. _It has to be something else. She’s a great swimmer. Maybe she swam somewhere cool and is exploring it._ Fear still nipped at her but it didn’t seem as bad now.

It seemed impossible for Lapis to be in danger…she was Mala’s mom, after all. Not as strong and fierce as Momma, but still…it didn’t seem possible.

\--

The police arrived to their home shortly after Momma broke the news to Mala. They searched through Lapis’s laptop and asked a few questions to Momma and Mala. They claimed to have begun tracking Lapis’s phone, but were unable to for unknown reasons.

\--

Days passed by. Mala tried to live her life as normal, but it didn’t feel so great. Nothing really…felt the same without Lapis, and Mala was starting to feel it. No one to pick her up from school, or ask how her day was, and no one to do her laundry or tell her to clean her room. At first it felt freeing. She had more time to hang out with her friends in after school programs, and her room could be as messy as she wanted it, and she could watch Family Guy without Lapis being mortified, but…some part of her was starting to miss it. Home didn’t feel like home without Lapis. Not at all…

It didn’t even feel the same with Momma either. Momma was different. She spent more time on the phone than making dinner. She didn’t laugh at Mala’s jokes or watch kaiju movies or Scooby Doo with Mala, and she didn’t let Mala play outside in the rain. She constantly wore a frown on her face, got angry over the smallest of things, and forced Mala to stay in her eyeshot at all times. Anger started to boil inside Mala about all the ways everything was different now.

\--

Just short of a week since Lapis went missing, they finally found her.

A policeman knocked on the door. Momma opened it, almost too eagerly, but her form sagged in response to the serious looks on his face.

“We found your wife, Mrs. Lazuli.”

Mala perked up. She rushed forward to Momma’s side. Momma placed a hand on her shoulder.

“We are sorry, Mrs. Lazuli.”

“Mala. Go to your room.”

“But-”

“Now!” Momma gritted, and she would have been loud and terrifying if it weren’t for the stranger at her door. Mala did what she was told…but not entirely. She hid in the hallway and used her ears to learn the rest of the conversation. Her heart pounded in her chest and she felt as if she were about to throw up.

“She was found in the river. We’re afraid your wife has drowned.”


	2. Chapter 2

Jasper could’ve sworn something was up when Lapis left that day. Lapis said she was going to run errands, but something in Jasper’s gut told her that Lapis was lying.

_“Be safe, got it?” Jasper said._

_“I’ll be okay,” Lapis assured her. She turned around and left into the rain, without looking back._

Little did Jasper know, it would be the last time Jasper would see her. Jasper knew it too, but she should’ve listened to that gut feeling.

Instead she trudged through the mud, river roaring beside her as the rain hammered down, soaking her to the bone. Jasper prayed that Mala was sound asleep right now. She also prayed that Lapis was safe too, but that gut feeling remained that she wasn’t.

Jasper moved her flashlight around, brushing light over the dense forest.

“LAPIS!” Jasper shrieked again. She scrutinized each area her flashlight hit. “LAPIS, WHERE ARE YOU?”

A flash of blue caught her eye. Jasper pointed her light to a tree. The river had swallowed the base of the trunk due to the flooding, but draping over a branch were a familiar pair of clothes.

Jasper rushed to the tree and sloshed in the water to grab the clothes. The journey through the water was slow and careful, since the current was strong and the rocks were slippery. Finally she grabbed hold of the pair and analyzed it. They were a crop top and a skirt- the very ones Lapis wore before leaving this morning.

Hope and dread mixed together within her. On one hand, she finally knew where Lapis had wandered off to. On another, it was already nighttime. Lapis had to either be lost in the forest or she…no…Jasper couldn’t even think of it!

That didn’t stop from Jasper calling out her name though. “LAPIS!!!” Jasper cried. “LAPIS, ARE YOU HERE?!” Lights danced around as she searched every nook and cranny in the surrounding area.

At least two hours had passed. Cold, soaked, tired, and hopeless, Jasper decided it was time to turn around and make her way back upriver. She wanted to keep searching but she remembered she had a child waiting back home for her, and Jasper couldn’t afford to suffer the same fate as Lapis. She huffed and turned around.

Regret filled her to the brim by the time she made it to her car. Lapis's car, which Jasper had found and parked beside, was still there. The engine to Jasper's car rumbled as she sat there for a moment. She took a deep breath before driving away, back to the safety of her home, while Lapis was still out there somewhere…alone.

There was one worry Jasper had. Her thoughts drifted to the other night, during one of their fights. The memory of what Lapis and Jasper fought about felt pointless now and out of Jasper’s mind, but she remembered it got more heated than usual. There was one sentence that remained in her memory:

_“I’d rather be dead than be here!” Lapis had said._

_Jasper’s face had paled after Lapis said that. Before her anger could return and for her to respond, they were interrupted by the creak of the door. Mala stood in the doorway, looking in their bedroom._

_“Oh…Mala…” Lapis said slowly. “What are you doing here?”_

_“I want help on my homework,” she said weakly. She took a few steps back away from the door._

_“Okay,” Lapis said, starting to pretend as if what went on seconds ago never happened. “What is bothering you?”_

_“Why do you want to be dead?”_

_“Way to go, Lapis!” Jasper said._

_Lapis ignored Jasper. “I don’t want to die. I was just angry. Let’s forget about it and let me help you with your homework.”_

_The issue blew over quickly, while the initial shock still tingled silently between them. Jasper brushed it off a few hours later, assuming Lapis was spouting out bullshit just to get under Jasper’s skin._

But…was it true after all?

Days passed before the police found Lapis. When they did, they went into detail about what happened, but even then, it didn’t bring closure.

The worst part about Lapis’s death was that Jasper would never know for sure. Why did she drown? Was it on purpose or an accident? Lapis had gotten caught in a current too strong to swim against and it pulled her underwater, and eventually smashed her into and caught her between some rocks. Did Lapis know that would happen or did she believe she’d come out of the river? Maybe Jasper would never know.

\--

_One week later._

Jasper, Mala, and a small group of others gathered at the ocean for Lapis’s funeral.

Jasper didn’t shed one tear that day. She hadn’t really cried much at all since Lapis’s death, especially when around Mala, who she had to appear strong for. It didn’t surprise her that much, but she was surprised that Mala reacted in a similar way. Jasper expected Mala to cry a lot, but she hadn’t done it much aside from the first day Lapis’s death was announced.

Jasper looked away from the people she was chatting with and glanced to Mala, who was playing with the few other kids who attended. Mala splashed around in the water and the bottom of her black dress was soaked and caked in sand. Jasper wanted to tell her that the dress was expensive and that Mala needed to be more careful wearing it, but she let it slide. Today was a rough enough day as it was.

“Hey, Jasper,” a voice said from behind her.

Jasper looked over her shoulder and turned around. Approaching her was Peridot.

“Hey, Peridot,” Jasper said. “Good to see you.”

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Peridot wore a fake smile and glanced out at the sea, which sparkled in the afternoon sun. “I was expecting it to be more…depressing…considering the fact that this is a funeral and all.”

“Pfft.” Jasper looked at the sea too. “Yeah…it is nice today.”

“Maybe it is Lapis to thank,” Peridot said. “Remember how we’d joke that she could control the weather?”

“Mmhmm.”

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” Peridot said, her smile gone. “If…if I knew that would…happen…I wouldn’t have left her alone.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Jasper said.

“I didn’t know the river was dangerous in the rain. If only I did, I could have insisted for her to return home instead of just driving off while she remained ther-”

“Look. I fucking get it,” Jasper said, in an unintentionally aggressive tone. She could tell it was on that level from the way Peridot recoiled.

Peridot looked at the ground. “I’m…I’m sorry…” Peridot said. Tears pricked her eyes. “I just wish this didn’t have to happen.”

“You and me both,” Jasper sighed. She looked at her. “But it wasn’t your fault. I swear it wasn’t, okay?”

“Okay…” Peridot said.

They gave each other an awkward hug and then parted to talk to the others. The kids were called from the shore back to the beach’s pavilion, where everyone sat as Jasper prepared the eulogy. She walked to the stage part of the pavilion.

“Thank you for everyone who gathered here today,” Jasper said. It was a good thing her voice was naturally loud, or else she’d have a difficult time talking over the waves. “My wife, Lapis, didn’t have much family, so I’m happy for the few who came here today to celebrate her life.

“Lapis…she was a remarkable woman and even more so as a wife and mother,” Jasper began her eulogy. She briefly went into Lapis’s past but not too much, since Lapis had never been comfortable with it, and then talked about how they fell in love and got married. She expressed her gratefulness of her helping to raise Mala as a baby and how she eventually considered Mala her own child as well. Jasper briefly brushed over the basics of her death and how much she would miss her. She didn’t cry, thankfully, but a lump did form in her throat near the end of it. The ordeal was over before she could really feel it though, and she stepped down from the stage.

Jasper joined Mala’s side. “Would you like to give a speech about Mom?” she asked her.

Mala twirled her hair. “I don’t really want to,” she murmured.

“It’s no problem. You don’t have to,” Jasper said. She looked down to see drying tear tracks on Mala’s cheeks. Mala quickly wiped them away.

A few others went up onto the stage to share their memories of Lapis. When everyone was done speaking, Jasper carried Lapis’s ashes to the boat while Mala carried the flowers.

The water turned from turquoise to deep blue as the boat carried them far from the shore. After a few minutes of watching the shore shrink away, they stopped. Jasper said a quick prayer, to whatever being was up there who would listen or not, and then she scattered the ashes into the sea. Mala adjusted her flowers and they both scattered them together. The blue and white flowers floated above the cloud of Lapis’s remains.

“Do you think Mom will be happy being sand?”

“Sand?” Jasper asked.

“Well yeah. She looks like sand so isn’t she going to become that?”

“I guess you’re right. And yes, she wanted this. She is now part of the sea.”

“I think she’s happy in her death.”

Jasper rose an eyebrow but immediately wished she hadn’t. She guessed it was a good thing for Mala to have that mindset, and it definitely wouldn’t be in the same way Jasper viewed it, right? “I think she’s happy in her death too,” she said.

“At least she got to die with what she loved.”

A lump formed in Jasper’s throat again and she said nothing.

They sat together in silence, the only sound being the waves lapping against the boat. The flowers continued to float but Lapis’s remains did not. They watched her ashes sink and mix into the water until the cloud was no longer visible, and the two remained there long after it was gone too. As the sunset bathed the world in its orange light, Jasper started the boat’s engine and took them back home, leaving Lapis and the flowers behind.

\--

_Four Years Later_

Mala sat on the school steps and tapped her foot as she waited for Momma to pick her up. It was around the time where Momma could be there at any second now, but that “any second” was getting longer and longer.

Her phone buzzed. Mala fiddled with it and checked the notification.

**Momma: I’m working overtime. You need to walk home or ask a friend for a ride.**

“Are you kidding me?” Mala hissed to herself. She shoved her phone in her pocket and stood up. Walking home it was. She glanced around at the other kids who waited for their parents and sighed. At least they got a ride home…and at least they had friends. She turned into the corner of the school.

“What are you sighing about, Stripes?”

Mala looked up to see Alex in front of her. “What does it matter, four-eyes?”

Alex shot a glare from behind her prescription glasses, whose lenses turned into shades against the bright afternoon sun. Kids found those glasses cool, but Mala had to insult her somehow.

“I see your faggot mom isn’t here.”

Mala clenched her fist. “We’re not faggots.”

Alex laughed. “Are you retarded? You guys _are_ faggots. You used to have two moms and you probably are some sick fag too.”

Mala winded her fist back and punched Alex in the nose. Her glasses fell to the ground and blood dripped down her face.

“My glasses!” Alex screamed. She scooped them up faster than Mala could crush those stupid things, and as soon as she stood up, she threw Mala down.

“Leave our friend alone!”

Mala looked up to see a group of other girls crowd around her with Alex.

“Beat the shit out of her, Alex!”

“What should we do about her, Alex?”

Before Alex could say anything, the girls lunged themselves at Mala. Two pinned her down while another pulled at her hair.

“LET GO OF ME OR I’LL KILL ALL OF YOU!!” Mala shrieked.

“What a psycho,” one girl said to the other.

Mala tried to sit up, a feat difficult in itself considering the girls crowding around her. Alex pushed her back down, and they all pinned her down as Alex punched her.

“That’s what you get for hitting me!” Alex spat as her fist connected to Mala’s nose to make Mala’s previous attack even.

Mala squirmed beneath them. “You can’t beat me! I’m bigger than all of you!” Mala said.

“You just admitted you’re Godzilla.” They all burst into laughter. Blood drained from Mala’s face.

“At least Godzilla is cooler than being a four-eyes!” Mala said.

“Who cares about glasses? You’re an ugly, fat, striped fag. I’d hang myself if I looked like you.”

“WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP?!”

“Did you just yell at me?!” Alex snapped. The girls all held Mala down as Alex winded her fist back. Mala braced herself; that was until the sound of a car made its way down the driveway.

Alex stopped. “Shit! That’s my mom!”

Alex stood up. She tore from the group, wiped her nosebleed away, and rushed to the car. The other girls, finished with their deed, looked at each other and then left together, giggling as if nothing happened.

“Did you see how stupid she looked?” one of them laughed.

“I almost threw up being that close to her. She’s so ugly.”

 “Did you see that stripe that runs across her face? It looks like someone smeared ugly white paint over her.”

“She’d look better with no skin at all.”

The girls disappeared down the field. It took a while for Mala to recover. Groaning a bit from the movement, Mala managed to push herself back up. She brushed the grass and dirt off herself, and made her way to the fence nearby. She climbed over it and headed into her usual shortcut: the forest.

Inside the forest was the river. The river wound from the mountain, through Beach City, and all the way into the ocean, but most importantly, it led into the neighborhood where Mala’s house was. Mala found the river a minute later and walked alongside it.

The stillness of the forest caught up to her, and her heartbeat eventually slowed down. Her mind, however, remained racing with thoughts.

One thing about the river was that Mala never knew which part of it was where Lapis’s body was found, or in which part was where she officially died. She could be passing it right now and never know for sure. Mala figured it was in a spot where it wasn’t safe to swim, obviously. Lapis wasn't stupid enough to die in the safest area of the river, obviously- she’d have to be somewhere really dangerous.

Memories of kids teasing her leaked into her thoughts again. _Your mom probably died on purpose because you are so ugly!_ one of their voices told her again. The teasing happened two years after Lapis’s death, when Mala turned twelve. Her death wasn’t the reason though- first Mala’s vitiligo was the reason, and then Mala’s size, and then because she used to have two mothers. The friends Mala had played with the year before middle school now never left her alone, and not in the good way either.

Alex was the first person Mala talked to on her first day in middle school. It went to hell almost immediately. Alex pretended to be friends just so she could ask Mala how she got those “stripes”, and when Mala mentioned that she simply just had them, Alex then revealed she wasn’t Mala’s friend after all. She had made fun of her ever since- calling her Stripes and Godzilla and Faggot and whatever other name she could think of. Kids joined her, first starting with a few others, then entire groups, then entire classrooms, and eventually almost all of the student body. They roared at her in the hallways, avoided her so they wouldn’t “catch those stripes”, and sometimes even gave her death threats and told her to kill herself; that she’d do the world a favor if she did so that “no one will have to see her ugly face anymore”.

Honestly…Mala probably would have died by now if it weren’t for Lapis already beating her to it. Mala couldn’t imagine doing that to Momma. They already lost Lapis…Mala didn’t know what it would do to Momma if Momma lost her too.

The sun set further on the horizon by the time houses started to pop up from behind the trees. At last, Mala was in her neighborhood. Her pace quickened and she joined the fences’ sides where she’d eventually meet up with her own backyard. The joyful screams of children playing filled the air.

“Hey, is that Mala?” a familiar voice said from the distance.

Mala looked around. She knew that voice from anywhere…and it wasn’t a good one either.

“Mala! Over here!” Her ears caught the sound of metal shaking. She turned around and groaned when her worries were confirmed. She didn’t even notice that she had passed…ugh…Steven….

“Hi, Mala!” Steven said from behind a wire fence. He pressed his face against the fence stupidly by the time Mala approached him.

Mala glared down at him. “I thought you lived by the shore.”

“I do. I’m just playing with Peedee today.”

“Aren’t you a little too old to ‘play’?” Mala spat.

“I don’t see why we can’t. We’re still kids,” he said.

A familiar scrawny kid stood behind Steven. “Fry Kid?” Mala asked.

Fry Kid rolled his eyes. “That’s me.”

“His name is Peedee,” Steven corrected.

“I’m pretty sure it’s Fry Kid,” Mala said with a smirk. She looked at him and snorted. “I can’t believe you have a friend. Of course it’d be _Steven_ though.”

 “I do like to make friends with everyone,” Steven told her.

“Good luck with that if you ever stop being homeschooled. You’ll be the biggest loser in the whole entire-”

“Mala, what happened to your nose?”

“What?”

“Your nose. It has blood under it.”

“That’s none of your business!” Mala said.

“I just want to make sure you’re okay-”

“YOU MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS!” Mala barked down at him. “I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU!”

Steven frowned. “But we’re friends, aren’t we?”

“We used to be!” Mala exclaimed. “How many times do I have to pound it into your thick skull? We can’t be friends anymore!”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a loser!”

Fry Kid looked at her. “You’re one too,” he droned. “ _Stripes.”_

Anger pulsed through Mala’s veins. It didn’t take long for it to erupt out of her. “WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME?!” she shrieked. “DO YOU WANT ME TO JUMP OVER THIS FUCKING FENCE AND BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF YOU?!”

“Stripes? What’s that? Mala, what’s gotten into you-?”

Fry Kid threw his hands up. He trembled pathetically. “N-n-no! I-I take it back, I’m so sorry, please don’t-”

“That’s what I thought,” Mala growled. She turned on her heels and stalked away. How dare that scrawny thing tell her that?! He had no audacity!

Dirt crunched beneath her as she approached the wooden fence to her backyard. Sitting beneath it was a log, which Mala had pushed one afternoon so that she could use it as a step to get over the fence. Despite being 5’10 now, she still needed its help. She hopped on top of it, swung her legs over the top of the fence, and then plopped into the grass on the other side. She let out a sigh.

After trotting to the patio, she lifted a cushion to one of the chairs to reveal a key. She unlocked the door and finally she was inside. Mala dropped her bag on the living room floor and collapsed into the sofa. She glanced at the clock and her anger subsided. She returned home just in time to watch one of her favorite shows about sharks.

She sprawled out on the couch, and although she was lonely, part of her was glad that she could take up as much space as she wanted without worrying about Momma. The TV sucked her attention in, and she barely even noticed the time until she checked it during a commercial break. It’d been another two hours since she got home and Momma _still_ wasn’t home yet?! Who would see a personal trainer this late anyway? Why would Momma get clients at this hour?

Mala groaned in frustration. If Momma was going to keep taking forever to get home, then Mala may as well scavenge for food instead of waiting for dinner. She snuck into the fridge and pulled out a container full of watermelon slices. She scooped a few slices onto a plate and then plopped back onto the couch.

_Ding Dong!_

Mala jumped up from the couch. Then she rose an eyebrow. Wait…why would Momma need to ring a doorbell? Couldn’t she just unlock the door herself? Was Momma seriously that lazy…unless….

Mala walked to the doorway and peeked through the eyehole. Her suspicions were right…that was not Momma. Instead, a formally dressed woman stood waiting at the steps. _You’ve got to be kidding me._ Mala swung open the door.

“I don’t want to hear about your religion,” Mala said. She was eye-level with the woman. Strange…most people were shorter than she was, except for Momma.

The woman furrowed her brow. “Religion?”

Mala blinked. The confusion on her face…wait, so she wasn’t a missionary? She gazed at her. Something was…familiar about the way the woman looked, but Mala couldn’t put a finger on it. The woman’s platinum hair was graying and her blue eyes were full of concern…but also…Mala was pretty sure she’s never seen this woman a day in her life…and yet…. “Uh…are you at the wrong house?”

“You must be Malachite Lazuli…right?”

_What the fuck is this?_ “Uh…yeah?”

“Is your mother home?”

“She’s in the shower,” Mala replied with the default answer for when strangers arrived while Momma wasn’t home. She rose an eyebrow, and remembered the mace and Swiss army knife she carried in her pockets.  “Wait…how do know my name?” she demanded slowly.

“Oh- allow me to introduce myself. My name is Blue Diamond. I am Lapis Lazuli’s mother.”


End file.
